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[Aptus]

I'm going to fucking maul the next person who makes a character based on Alan Turing and pleasantly "forgets" that he was gay.  He died for it.

Where did this happen?

If TVTropes is right, Pacific Rim.  I sent a rather lengthy note to the scriptwriter.

Wow... I have not seen Pacific Rim yet but if that is correct, and the character is actually meant to be a Turing analog, that is really shitty.

[Xantalos]

I'm going to fucking maul the next person who makes a character based on Alan Turing and pleasantly "forgets" that he was gay.  He died for it.

Where did this happen?

If TVTropes is right, Pacific Rim.  I sent a rather lengthy note to the scriptwriter.

Wait, the mathematician guy? The one with the cane?
...
He never expressed any interest in women from what I can tell, and the majority of his interactions are with other scientist dude, though no signs of sexuality are shown either case. You could say he's gay but was focused on the mission or somesuch?

[Sirus]

I'm going to fucking maul the next person who makes a character based on Alan Turing and pleasantly "forgets" that he was gay.  He died for it.

Where did this happen?

If TVTropes is right, Pacific Rim.  I sent a rather lengthy note to the scriptwriter.

Wait, the mathematician guy? The one with the cane?
...
He never expressed any interest in women from what I can tell, and the majority of his interactions are with other scientist dude, though no signs of sexuality are shown either case. You could say he's gay but was focused on the mission or somesuch?

Assuming this is the character Vector is referencing...so what? The dude never said anything about his romantic interests, at all. Romance was probably the least important thing in the film. And now the scriptwriters deserve hate mail because someone wasn't specifically revealed to be gay?

[Vector]

No, not at all.  It wasn't hate mail, either--I politely asked if he was actually basing the character on Turing or if that was just a TvTropes thing.

You see, in the novelization and other details, Gottlieb is the only character other than the Kaidanovskys (the Russian pilots) specifically meant to be partnered.  And the scriptwriter has stuck with this, repeatedly filling out more and more information on the wife.  They're expecting a child together blah blah blah.

It isn't that he wasn't mentioned to be gay.  It's that, more than any other speaking role (all of the rest of which are unpartnered at the time of the film), it has been affirmed over and over again that he is straight.

[Xantalos]

Ooooh you read the novelization. That explains everything.

[Vector]

No, I didn't.  I found out about that online and was like "wait, what?  Oh, that's the novelization, whatever."

Then I go to the scriptwriter's blog and, no, he didn't go "yeah, that's just the novelization, the movie's different" it's all "Ooh, and she's a model and like all this other stuff" and I'm all "DUDE WTF"

[nenjin]

So a screenwriter, in basing a character off a character, isn't allowed to pick and choose what they want to use? His sexual identity was clearly important to Turing, but perhaps it wasn't the part of the character that the writer found interesting?

It just seems like you're placing overt emphasis on a fictional character's sexuality. Is being gay what made Alan Turing, what makes him worthy to be used as the basis for other characters? I know I'm breaking Godwin but...say I want to create a maniacal dictator who commits atrocities and loves their propaganda....and I decide they're a homosexual. I'd clearly be talking about Hitler as my inspiration, drawing on elements of his life and personality to tell my story. Would my choice of a different sexuality be a travesty? Is being straight what made Hitler, Hitler? Just like is being gay what made Turing who he is, a figure that you can base interesting characters off of?

If the movie was like "So and so, based off Alan Turing" in the trailers....that'd be one thing. But this clearly isn't that.

[Sirus]

Ahhh, okay. I haven't read any out-of-film sources of information (I can't even remember the names of the characters/robots/monsters without looking them up), so I was unaware of that.

But still, I'm not sure the scientist in question was based on Turing. He was in a similar field, yes, but seemed very different in most other ways. It's be a little like calling you a Turing clone; it makes no sense.

[Vector]

Turing is an extraordinarily important figure to the LGBT, mathematical, and computer science communities.  A figurehead, as it were, and symbol of having one's achievements adored (THE head codebreaker at Bletchley Park who helped crack ENIGMA, THE father of AI, THE father of computer science) while one's body is destroyed by the government for the sin of being gay.

When they picked Turing--if they picked Turing--they really, really, really fucked up.  It'd be like basing a male character off of Emmy Noethur or Ada Lovelace.  This is serious.

Ahhh, okay. I haven't read any out-of-film sources of information (I can't even remember the names of the characters/robots/monsters without looking them up), so I was unaware of that.

But still, I'm not sure the scientist in question was based on Turing. He was in a similar field, yes, but seemed very different in most other ways. It's be a little like calling you a Turing clone; it makes no sense.

That's why I asked about it--the TVTropes page says that he's a Turing expy, so if that's a point of view the author supports, I let him know that was where I got the information from and I'd take care of it so he didn't have some flavor of PR disaster.  I also tried to give him a way out by mentioning Joan Clarke (a woman who offered to marry Turing to protect him).  And told him that if he needed lists of very dead, very weird mathematicians who weren't LBGT figureheads he could ask me or any other pure math major.

I mean, this was really a very polite note, and at the end I didn't say "DO SOMETHING," I just said "this is very important to a lot of people, so next time you're writing a script--if you actually have made the error in question--please consider trying something else."

[Graknorke]

I'm pretty sure that the government wanted to chemically castrate him, not kill him.

[Vector]

It was chemical castration or being put in jail, yeah, and he suffered a hell of a lot from the results of the former.

[MetalSlimeHunt]

Whether or not Turing actually died as a result is ambiguous, however. The hormonal treatment ended a year before his death, and how exactly he ended up poisoned has never been determined. It could have been a suicide, accident, or murder.

[Vector]

I suppose it is ambiguous.  All the same, it's a situation to which they really should have been far more attentive--again, IF the character were based on Turing.

[IronyOwl]

When they picked Turing--if they picked Turing--they really, really, really fucked up.  It'd be like basing a male character off of Emmy Noethur or Ada Lovelace.  This is serious.

Well, again. Would a Swiss Gandhi or female Hitler be similarly catastrophic? What about a violent Gandhi or an uncharismatic Hitler?

[MetalSlimeHunt]

Anybody who has played Civilization knows what violent Gandhi is like. The man is sick and twisted.